Frontline Nurses Read online

  The first person she met was Captain Dragonoff. He looked her up and down for a moment and then grunted, ‘I told you this was no place for petticoats.’ She was uncomfortably aware of the stares of the other men but none of them commented and before long she was too busy to notice.

  Victoria and Luke did not return that evening and Leo tried to calm her anxiety by telling herself that there was probably a simple explanation. Perhaps there had been some problem that had delayed them in Lozengrad. Maybe the road had just become completely impassable due to the weather. It had rained all day and she had been glad of the new freedom of movement that discarding the heavy skirt had given her. It stirred some distant memory that she could not quite put her finger on.

  Most of her time was spent in the dressing tent but she was also called upon frequently to help with patients as the stretcher bearers struggled up from the trenches. She had a waterproof cape and her cap, but by the end of the day her hair had come down and hung heavy and damp on her shoulders. At bedtime she tried ineffectually to dry it with an already damp towel and realised that it was not just wet. It was matted with mud and blood and it was impossible to get a comb through it. She had a pair of scissors in her First Aid bag. She found them and sat for a moment, hesitating. Then, seized by a sudden revulsion, she hacked at the lank tresses until she was left with a rough crop about two inches long all over. Shaking her head, she felt a sudden lightness and the memory that had evaded her all day became clear. She grinned to herself as she imagined the reaction of her grandma. She would be scandalised, and so would Ralph. Well, she didn’t care. But as an afterthought she gathered up the discarded locks and bound them into a switch with a piece of bandage. After all, she reasoned, she would be going home one day and it could be made into a hairpiece to cover her embarrassment. She ran a comb through what remained of her hair and climbed into her sleeping bag.

  Next morning Draganoff looked at her and nodded. ‘So, now you understand why this is no place for a woman.’ Leo was not sure whether this was a sign of disapproval or the reverse but he said no more so she got on with her work.

  She was eager to see how Victoria would react to her transformation, so she was doubly pleased when the car chugged and spluttered into view. Rather than drive through the treacherous mud around the tent Victoria parked on the road and she and Luke climbed out and began to trudge up to where Leo was waiting. They were laughing together at something and when Victoria slipped Luke caught her round the waist and continued to hold onto her rather longer than, in Leo’s opinion, was strictly necessary.

  ‘Sorry we didn’t get back yesterday,’ Victoria called. ‘Couldn’t get Sparky to start and I had to spend most of the day with my head under the …’ Then she took in Leo’s changed appearance and her hand went to her mouth. ‘Leo! What has happened? Who did that to you?’

  ‘No one did it,’ Leo said, laughing. ‘I did it myself. I got tired of trying to keep it dry. What do you think?’ The two arrivals had reached her by this time and she could see that Victoria was shocked. ‘Oh, come on, Vita! You’re a progressive woman. I didn’t expect you to disapprove.’

  ‘But, Leo, you look like a boy! Honestly, with your hair like that and those breeches, you could be mistaken for one.’

  ‘So what?’ Leo asked and turned to Luke to see his reaction.

  He was grinning broadly. ‘Well, I’m really pleased to meet you, Mr Brown,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘I used to know your sister slightly, but I guess she’s had to leave.’

  Leo shook his hand, laughing. ‘Oh, she’ll be back. I’m just deputising for her till the weather gets better.’

  ‘But don’t you feel terribly – exposed?’ Victoria asked.

  ‘No, it feels wonderful. It reminds me of when I was much younger. When I used to travel with my father, when I started to – well, grow up – he thought in some places I might be at risk as a girl, so he used to dress me as a boy. I’d forgotten until today how marvellous it feels not to have a skirt dragging round my ankles and all that hair weighing my head down. You should try it, Vita.’

  Victoria seemed to have got over her initial shock but nothing would persuade her to follow Leo’s example.

  By evening, having watched her and Luke together over supper, Leo had graver matters on her mind. When they were both in their sleeping bags she said, ‘Vita, are you serious about Luke?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do. He obviously likes you and you seem to like him. But is it serious?’

  ‘Don’t be silly! We get on well together, which is just as well since we have to spend a lot of time in each other’s company. What makes you think it’s anything more than that?’

  ‘Well, you have to admit it’s not usual for a young woman to spend so much time alone with a man.

  ‘Whose fault is that? I thought you were beyond all that Victorian moralising.’

  ‘You’re a fine one to talk! Look at the way you reacted to my hair cut.’

  ‘At least I’m not trying to masquerade as a man.’

  ‘Nor am I. And it doesn’t matter to me if you and Luke are having an affair …’

  ‘We are not having an affair!’

  ‘What I’m trying to say is this. I think Luke is sweet on you, and I think he is probably quite naïve about this sort of thing. I mean, I don’t know what life is like in New Zealand but I bet he’s never met anyone like you before, so don’t lead him on. I just don’t want him to get the wrong idea. I should hate to see him hurt.’

  Victoria was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘I am not leading him on, and anyway it’s none of your business. So just leave it, will you?’

  She turned her back and shrugged her sleeping bag up round her ears, leaving Leo unhappily aware that she had opened a rift between them that might take some time to heal.

  Chapter 11

  Over the next days Leo developed a routine. Up at 6.30, breakfast of black, sweet coffee, bread and cheese, or sometimes a kind of porridge, then the day spent in the endless task of dressing wounds and washing and feeding the patients, dinner and then bed. Most of the time she was cold, wet and often hungry, but that was insignificant compared with the suffering all around her. Dragonoff, perhaps because he saw her as more conscientious or more intelligent than the men under his command, or perhaps because she was neater and more nimble-fingered, began to teach her some more advanced techniques, including how to suture a wound. In civilian life he had been, she learned, the doctor in charge of a hospital in Sophia and his dour manner was his defence against the horrors he had to deal with every day.

  Victoria and Luke came and went and each time they returned Leo thought she saw signs of greater intimacy between them. Once or twice she tried to tease her friend about it but Victoria always put her off with a shrug or a sarcastic remark. The convoys of ox-carts continued to plod off towards Lozengrad and the places of those who had gone were immediately filled by new casualties. The battle was at a stalemate and no one could see how it would come to an end.

  The only unusual occurrence was the arrival of a Turkish prisoner at the dressing tent. He had been caught trying to burrow into one of the Bulgarian saps to lay a mine and in the ensuing fight had received a bayonet wound that had laid his scalp open. No one knew why he had been brought in instead of being dispatched on the spot, which was the usual practice, but there were rumours that he was a spy and was being held for questioning. Casualties had been heavy that day and there was hardly room in the tent for another man, so the stretcher bearers set him down outside while one of them searched for a space. The man was mumbling and protesting in Turkish, convinced that he was about to be killed, and struggling with the remaining bearer in an effort to rise. Leo, hearing the noise, went out to him and stooped beside the stretcher.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said in Turkish. ‘You’re quite safe here. No one is going to harm you. Lie still and I will fetch some bandages to dress your wound. What is your name?’
/>   ‘Kemal,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, Kemal. I will be back in a moment.’ She nodded to the stretcher bearer. ‘It’s all right. You can leave him to me.’

  The man subsided and she turned away to go back into the tent. As she did so, she heard hoof beats and glanced round to see a company of Serbian cavalry headed by an officer on a magnificent grey horse cantering into the camp. She went into the tent, collected a tray with the necessary equipment and returned to find the Turk staggering to his feet. The cavalry company had halted a short distance away and the officer was leaning down from his saddle to consult a Bulgarian sergeant. Leo’s first thought was that the Turk was attempting to run away. Then he raised his arm and something metallic caught the light, and she saw that he had pulled a pistol from the waistband of his baggy trousers and was aiming it at the officer. She was too far away to reach him before he could pull the trigger, so she acted instinctively.

  ‘Kemal!’ she shouted in Turkish. ‘Look out!’

  It was enough to distract him for the crucial second. He swung round, looking for the expected assailant, and before he could recover himself Leo’s shoulder hit him in the midriff with all the weight of her body behind it. He collapsed onto the ground with her on top of him. Leo had grown up skirmishing with the local children in the dust of whatever archaeological dig her father had been engaged in and she had learned early to give as good as she got. For a breathless moment they struggled, the Turk trying to throw her off and she trying to seize hold of the arm that held the gun. Then a booted foot was placed on the man’s wrist, a pistol was pointed at his head and a strong hand gripped Leo’s arm and helped her to rise. A young Serbian lieutenant was grinning down at her.

  ‘Well done, lad! It looks as if you’ve just saved the colonel’s life. You can leave this bastard to me now. The colonel wants to speak to you.’

  Leo looked round in a panic to where the officer still sat his horse. Should she explain, tell him who she really was? The lieutenant gave her a friendly shove. ‘Go on. He won’t eat you.’

  She stumbled over to stand by the flank of the grey horse and found herself looking up into the searching dark eyes of Colonel Aleksander Malkovic. For a moment neither of them spoke as Leo cudgelled her brain for words of explanation and excuse. Then he smiled and said, ‘Well, boy, it seems I owe you my life. What is your name?’

  He had not recognised her. Relief flooded through her. She cleared her throat. The damp weather and the exhaustion of the previous days had roughened her voice and given it a convincing hoarseness. ‘Leo, sir. Leo Brown.’

  His smile widened. ‘Leo? A young lion cub indeed! But you are not Serbian, or Bulgarian. What are you, German?’

  ‘No, sir. English.’

  ‘English! What is an English boy doing here in the middle of all this?’ Before Leo could reply he went on, ‘This is not the time to talk. You acted very bravely just now and you should be rewarded. Come to my tent before dinner. We will talk then.’

  He clicked to his horse and trotted away, followed by the rest of his company. Behind her Leo heard the report of a pistol. She swung round in time to see the lieutenant holstering his weapon. The Turk lay lifeless at his feet.

  ‘There was no need for that,’ Leo protested angrily.

  The man laughed. ‘Don’t be so soft! He tried to shoot the colonel. What did he expect – a medal? Anyway, why wasn’t he searched before he was left here?’ He stooped and took the pistol from the dead man’s hand and held it out to Leo. ‘Here, you deserve this – trophy of war.’

  Leo’s first instinct was to refuse, remembering her father’s pistol which she kept in her knapsack, but then it occurred to her that any young man would accept the gift with enthusiasm. She took it and muttered her thanks and the lieutenant ran to his horse, vaulted into the saddle and cantered off after his superior officer.

  Leo spent the day in a misery of indecision. Should she simply ignore the summons and hope Malkovic would forget about her? But suppose he sent for her? What excuse could she give? Would it be better to make a clean breast of things and try to pass it off as a joke? She imagined herself saying, ‘Don’t you recognise me? We met at the hotel in Salonika.’ But she remembered what Dragitch had said that evening. ‘Sasha Malkovic is notorious for his attitude to women at the front. He regards them all as no better than camp followers.’ If she revealed herself now, he would be furious with her for deceiving him. He would certainly order her back to Lozengrad. He might even have her arrested and put on a ship back to London. Did he have the authority to do that? Perhaps not, but it was too much to risk. All these questions plagued her as she went about her work but deep down she knew that it did not matter what answer she came to. Nothing would prevent her from seeing Sasha Malkovic again, even if she had to disguise her sex to do it.

  When her duties were finished for the day she begged some warm water from one of the cooks and washed herself as best she could. Running a comb through her shorn hair she wished she could see herself, but she had no mirror. Victoria had said she looked like a boy, and the resemblance had been good enough to fool the lieutenant and Malkovic, apparently. She had to rely on that. She was reminded of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. ‘What country, friend, is this?’ ‘This is Illyria, lady.’ Wasn’t Illyria supposed to be somewhere in the Balkans?

  She was still hesitating when a voice from outside the tent called, ‘Brown? Are you in there?’ and she went out to find the lieutenant waiting for her. He conducted her through the camp to the colonel’s tent, which had been set up a little away from the rest, in the shelter of a ruined building. Malkovic was sitting behind a folding table, studying maps by the light of a hurricane lamp. He looked up when the lieutenant announced her.

  ‘Ah, there you are. Come in. Thank you, Michaelo, you can go.’

  The lieutenant saluted and left, dropping the tent flap behind him, and she was alone with the man whom she had disliked on first meeting and whose face had haunted her dreams ever since. He stood up, stretching as if he had spent too long at his desk, and looked down at her. There was a smile at the corner of the arrogant lips and a glint in his eye that she found unsettling. Had he recognised her from the beginning, and was he teasing her now?

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘my English lion cub. What language shall we converse in? I regret I do not speak English. You speak a little Serbian, obviously.’

  ‘A little,’ Leo agreed. ‘I speak Bulgarian better.’

  He shrugged. ‘There is little difference. I think we shall understand each other. Tell me, how old are you?’

  She had given that some thought. Too young and he might send her away, too old and the deception would be difficult to sustain. She cleared her throat and dropped her voice to its lowest register. ‘Seventeen, sir.’

  The glint in his eyes grew to a sparkle of amusement and she knew he had assumed that she would lie about her age. ‘If you say so.’ He turned away to the table where a bottle of wine stood beside two silver goblets. He filled them and handed one to Leo.

  ‘Prost!’

  ‘Prost!’ she responded and drank. It was the first wine she had tasted for several weeks and as the warmth spread through her belly she began to relax. He indicated a folding chair that stood in front of the desk.

  ‘Sit.’

  She sat and he resumed his former place behind the table.

  ‘So,’ the dark eyes studied her, ‘what brings a young English gentleman to care for wounded Bulgarian soldiers?’

  She had thought about this, too, and decided that Luke’s story, with suitable alterations, would serve very well. ‘My grandparents were from Macedonia, sir. They were driven from their land by the Turks and fled to England. I grew up hearing their story, so when I heard that you and the Bulgars were driving the Turks out of the country I decided to volunteer to help. I wanted to join the army but they told me I was too young. So I volunteered as a medical orderly.’

  ‘And how do you come to speak Turkish?’

>   This was more difficult but she decided that in this case truth was the best policy. ‘My father was very interested in archaeology and he worked for a time helping Herr Dorpfeld at Troy. He took me with him.’

  ‘That is a big leap, for the son of Macedonian peasant farmers,’ Malkovic commented.

  Leo drew herself up in an attitude of hurt pride that was only partly assumed. ‘My grandparents may have been peasants, as you call them, but they were both very intelligent. When they reached England they became prosperous merchants and my father was well educated. He was also a very clever man.’

  ‘You say “was”?’

  ‘He died a few years ago. Both my parents are dead.’

  ‘But your grandparents know you are here and have given their approval?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ She was in so deep that one lie more or less seemed unimportant.

  Malkovic regarded her broodingly for a moment, then he rose to his feet. ‘I promised you a reward. What shall it be?’

  ‘I don’t want a reward,’ she answered. ‘I saw someone’s life in danger and I did what I could to save it. That is all.’

  ‘At some risk to yourself,’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘I didn’t stop to think about that.’